Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service

Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS)
Commander Adelaide Sinclair was Director of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service in 1944
Active	1942–1946 1951–1968
Country	Canada
Allegiance	Canada
Branch	Royal Canadian Navy
Role	Operational support, Various duties
March	The Wren's March
Disbanded	August 1946 February 1968

The Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS or "Wrens") was an element of the Royal Canadian Navy that was active during the Second World War and post-war as part of the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve until unification in 1968. The WRCNS was in operation from October 1942 to August 1946.

The WRCNS was modelled on the Women's Royal Naval Service, which had been active during the First World War and then revived in 1939. The Royal Canadian Navy was slow to create a women's service, only establishing the WRCNS in July 1942, nearly a year after the Canadian Women's Army Corps and the Royal Canadian Air Force Women's Division. By the end of the war however nearly 7,000 women had served with the WRCNS in 39 trades.

The ByTown II, later renamed HMCS Conestoga ("The Stone Frigate"), was the WRCNS training centre in Galt, Ontario, and became the first female-commanded Canadian commissioned "ship" in June 1943 when Lieutenant Commander Isabel Macneill was appointed commanding officer. That September Commander Adelaide Sinclair became the first Canadian Director of the WRCNS, a position she held until disbandment.

The WRCNS was disbanded in July 1946, but revived as part of the Naval Reserve at the beginning of the Korean War. It was disbanded a second time in 1968 when the Royal Canadian Navy as a whole was folded into the unified Canadian Forces.

A Historic Sites and Monuments' board of Canada plaque in Halifax describes the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service: